@madrid998 this isn't a cake thing, this is a general software engineering question you are asking. A simple static file with a 1 or 0, a database table with a is_first_time boolean column or an install page would all solve your problem a long with countless other ways.

@jojomartius CakePHP can do most everything you want. You can force contains to a LEFT JOIN if you'd like. You can even do custom joins. I need to know your schema and query before I could begin to help. See if you can get the ORM to do what you want.

The data starts off as a hard coded array so it is simpler to use that same static array instead of creating a database table and populating the database. We will simply store the records as an array in the model and set useTable=false

I have a table used to store about 50 records which never change, the data is static. What is the best way to store this as an array in Cake instead of a database? Where do I store the file? Many thanks for any help.

hey guys.. trying to play a bit with cake3's models and querys... i found in the docu a simple has many example $query = $articles->find('all')->contain(['Comments']);.. whats the best way to find only articles where the comment is cmming from a specifc user or all articels the user hasnt commented yet ;)

Were there any changes from 3.4 to 3.5 with loading/unloading behaviors dynamically? I am getting "Behavior class TimestampBehavior could not be found. in [vendor/cakephp/cakephp/src/ORM/BehaviorRegistry.php, line 127]" when calling $ModelName->behaviors()->unload('Timestamp');

Oh, just one thought before I vanish. Do check DebugKit, to ensure that in the SQL tab it doesn&rsquo;t say &lsquo;An instance was created using Cake\ORM\Table&rsquo; because if it does, then you&rsquo;ve probably got a typo

yes that is how it is set up and it is workgin, but in the join table i have more keys to link to other tables. and i would also like to see the actual content from that table and not only the ID (which i get now)